


Taking the Plunge

by SeymourDisapproves



Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood Trauma, F/F, Gen, Original Fiction, hydrophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:07:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25119628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeymourDisapproves/pseuds/SeymourDisapproves
Summary: A fear is faced.





	Taking the Plunge

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this story for a contest and got some money for it! I figured that I might as well share it here.

The surface of the lake was a shifting haphazard mess of push and pull pierced by a single, blinding beam of light. Ollie wiped at the sweat forming on her forehead with the palm of her hand and glared at the waves, trying not to shiver as a lakefront breeze blew past her. She shifted in place, trying vainly to spare the soles of her bare feet from the slowly baking and splintering wood of the weathered T-shaped dock that jutted out from the shoreline like a crooked tooth. She stood on her toes and tried to see the modest forest that she knew was located somewhere past the endless, blinding, crushing expanse of water in front of her, but of course there was nothing. It was always nothing. She couldn’t help but compare the churning of the water to the churning in her stomach.

“It’s almost 7:00,” Jess announced. Ollie startled and looked at the ground to her right. Jess stared up at her from under her large sunhat with her phone in her hand and her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees. The dark circles under her brown eyes were hidden behind darker sunglasses, but her mouth was set in an unmistakable grimace.

“…And?”

“And we’ve been here since 6:00.”

“Oh. I guess we have.”

“Oh, I know we have.”

The corners of Jess’ mouth twitched upwards into an easy smile. Her arms fell to her sides and her long legs unfurled like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. She submerged her calves in the lake and hummed idly, impervious to the wind and the sun and the fear of what lurked under those waves. Ollie resumed her solemn vigil over the cloudless sky and the harsh white sunlight glinting off the boundless dark water, her chest aching with love and envy and a looming sense of dread. 

“Water’s just starting to warm up,” said Jess. “Wish I’d thought to bring my swimsuit, too.”

Ollie felt the wood scorch her soles and her sweat mix with her waterproof sunscreen. She wiped at the resulting substance with her palm. The sun shone apathetically, and the open mouth of the lake yawned widely.

“You okay?”

“No.”

“You wanna go sit in the car for a while?”

Ollie glanced behind her, surveying the tall wispy strands of grass that grew to spite the sandy shoreline, the parched strip of soil that separated the sliver of beach from the woodchips and mulch that marked the area of the local playground, and the dusty red Chevy Malibu standing proudly in the Dairy Queen parking lot across the street. She thought about air conditioning and the sensation of her hair whipping wildly around in a vortex of her own making as she drove with all the windows down. She thought about driving away from the beach until she was out of gas and hitchhiking with strangers until she was as far away from a body of water as she could possibly be. She thought about the long talks she had with her therapist and the way her breath would hitch whenever she heard splashing or saw a flash of fluorescent pink.

“No,” Ollie said as she turned back to the watery gaping maw.  
Ollie picked at the thick straps of her swimsuit and grazed her hands along its seams, feeling each spot where the silkiness of cheap black water-resistant fabric made to look enticing only in stagnant two-dimensional space bunched and contorted over the dynamic curves and angles of her body in ways that she could only imagine as being unflattering. A chant of, “This looked better on the hanger,” ran through her head and pushed her farther and farther away from the goal she set out to accomplish. Jess nudged her leg.

“Baby, you don’t have to do this-”

“Yes I do.” Ollie winced. Her words came out harsh, and Jess was not someone who deserved harsh words. “Yes, I do.”

“…I’m just saying so you don’t forget- and I think you forget this a lot, Ollie. This isn’t a race. There’s nobody you have to beat. You already took a really big step today just by coming here, and I think you’re being real mean to yourself when you focus just on how far you have to go and forget how far you’ve already come.”

Ollie swallowed the bitter lump in her throat and felt her blood chill in protest against the scorching heat on her face and the stark white sun and the too large, too violent lake under that too wide, too blue sky.   
She remembered being five and waking up in the middle of the night screaming and crying to her parents about dreams of being sucked under the lake at the edge of town and lost forever. She remembered how her mother’s gentle cooing was eventually replaced by a furrowed brow and a stern command to go sleep in her own bed. She remembered the years’ worth of nights spent staring at the spindly shadows on her bedroom ceiling, mind rushing to supply her with new and terrible theories about what could be living under that dark open water.  
She remembered being ten and having to wear a garish pink swimsuit covered in stiff ruffles and leopard-print to a lakeside family gathering and sobbing because she hated being so close to the water. She remembered her father, tired from arguing and red from drinking, roughly dragging her down the dock by the arm and her mother screaming at him to stop as her cousins and aunts and uncles looked on in shock. She remembered calloused hands gripping her by her halter top and shoving her forward and the loud splash her body made as it connected with the surface of the lake and the way she flailed and screamed as water stung her eyes and poured into her open mouth and pulled her farther into its murky depths. She remembered much softer hands bringing her back to the surface and her mother cooing, brow furrowed and eyes wet, while her father stood by, silent and ashamed.

She remembered being 18 and moving away from her home town on the Eastern edge of Michigan to the center, away from water and away from trauma.

She was 22 and she still had nightmares about sinking to the bottom of the lake.

Ollie felt hot tears spill down her face and wished that all of her fear could be felt in one painful burst rather than the sporadic, volatile cloud of terror that constricted her lungs and squeezed her heart whenever a thoughtless friend or family member mentioned going on a cruise or taking up snorkeling or planning a destination wedding to the Dead Sea. She sat down on the dock next to Jess and drew her knees up to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“Don’t be.”

“I’m being stupid.”

“I promise you you’re not being stupid.”

“I feel like a failure.”

“I promise you you’re not that, either.”

“I know I’m not that either, but I can’t stop myself from feeling like one.”

Jess pulled her legs out of the water and shifted to face her partner, gathering Ollie’s long curly hair and tying it back with an elastic band. She wrapped her arms around the other woman and kissed her salty neck.   
Ollie sighed at the relief of cool fingertips and fresh air on her hot neck. She peered down at the water and felt a cold ball drop in the pit of her stomach. The wooden deck gently scraped the backs of Ollie’s calves as she cautiously drew her feet closer to the water and considered her options. 

“Whatever you choose, I’ll be here for you.”

Her legs hovered above the surface of the lake for almost a full minute before she withdrew them completely. She had nothing to prove.

“Can we go back to the hotel room?”

“Sure.”

Jess kissed Ollie’s cheek, stood up, and offered her hand. Ollie took it and pulled herself up. Hand in hand, the two women traced their way back up the dock and ran through hot sand and hotter asphalt to their old Malibu, chuckling at their lack of foresight and appropriate footwear. 

As they pulled out of the empty Dairy Queen parking lot and made their way up the slight incline leading into town, Ollie looked out the passenger-side window and finally saw the trees on the other side of the lake. The lush mixture of evergreens and maples jutted proudly into the sky like dozens of gloved hands reaching up to pull the sun off its axis, and as she traced the outline of the water, Ollie felt the tension she had been carrying in her shoulders melt away.

“Darling? I’m proud of you,” Jess said as she reached past the console and squeezed her girlfriend’s knee.

“Me, too,” Ollie said as she put her hand on top of Jess’ and squeezed back.


End file.
